OceanGate wasn’t a Theranos-style scam, and Rush at least believed in his own product enough to risk his life putting it to the test.
But again and again, the movie’s subjects recount an initial lack of reflection that they now struggle to explain.
“He’s not going to put a live correspondent on anything that’s dangerous.” Several of Titan’s subjects describe the OceanGate staff’s devotion to Stockton Rush as “cultlike,” and that certainly tracks.
He’s a relatively small symptom of a much larger disease, one whose effects Titan only begins to calculate.
But you can see in the outlines of the OceanGate tragedy the sickness writ small, like the seed of a virus from which a vaccine is engineered.
Several people in Titan: The OceanGate Disaster, a new Netflix documentary about the 2023 attempt to reach the Titanic wreckage in a carbon-fiber submersible, raised concerns about the experimental vessel’s danger and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush’s hubris. This is what makes the actions of the people in the documentary remarkable. It’s because so many of them didn’t. If there’s one thing that Mark Monroe’s film makes clear, it’s that Rush’s project was dangerous from the start and that only his confidence and wealth kept it going. Rush’s project was to replace the few expensive submarines that could descend to the seafloor with a lightweight craft that could be produced in large quantities. In a scene from a previous trip, Rush is seen telling a traveler, “If you hear an alarm, just don’t worry about it,” while they are being fastened into the submarine. “”.
Despite its title, Titan is about Stockton Rush just as much as it is about his business, though the film also implies that there wasn’t much of a distinction between the two. Monroe regularly cuts to an organizational chart that illustrates the subjects’ positions within the company’s hierarchy. For example, David Lochridge, known as “the Whistleblower,” was the director of marine operations, meaning that he was frequently the one operating the company’s ships until one trip when Rush insisted on taking the controls himself and almost got the sub stranded beneath the Andrea Doria wreckage. However, Rush is the only constant in the chart as the other branches disappear as employee after employee resigns in protest or is fired for voicing concerns. Being a descendant of two Declaration of Independence signatories and the heir to generational wealth, he was obviously certain that he was destined for greatness. However, his academic performance at Princeton and prep school was unimpressive, and he was unfortunate to grow up during a time when being wealthy was not a guarantee of public recognition. In addition to their immense wealth, the “big swinging dicks” he looked up to—like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk—became well-known for spreading their own self-created myths. James Cameron, of course, also plays a part. Therefore, Rush focused on creating myths, seemingly believing that the success and the billions would come later. Rush’s wealth, while significant, was far less than that of his heroes.
According to Joseph Assi, a videographer Rush hired to record his progress, “everyone was privileged to be there.”. Being present made them feel special. It’s unclear, though, whether Rush had the talent to persuade people that they were part of something revolutionary or if he simply had the money to buy their zeal. At least Rush had enough faith in his own product to risk his life testing it, and OceanGate wasn’t a Theranos-style scam. However, the subjects of the film repeatedly describe an early lack of introspection that they now find difficult to explain. Rush, who had only completed his undergraduate studies in the sciences, is referred to as a “genius” by some, but Tony Nissen, his chief engineer, claims that Rush was ignorant of—or even rejected—basic scientific ideas that predicted the Titan’s eventual demise. Other worries were overshadowed by the thrill of building a submarine out of a lightweight and reasonably priced material, which would lower construction costs and the difficulties of getting it into the water. Even the obstructive speed bumps were eventually taken down. The engineers at OceanGate constructed an “acoustic monitoring” system to monitor the sound of the carbon-fiber hull’s threads breaking and snapping under tremendous pressure. Rush contends that while the general public believes that a submarine should make “none” noise as it descends to depths where the human body can instantly liquefy, a little pop here and there is unavoidable. He eventually broke his initial pledge to have the sub certified as safe by an outside organization, however, as the noises grew louder.
Unsurprisingly, Rush was able to overcome long-held beliefs about underwater safety by hiring recent college graduates, frequently at the expense of workers with decades of experience and more obvious reservations. After some time, Emily Hammermeister, also known as “the Insider,” a young oceanography graduate, resigned due to safety concerns. “It was my first work trip,” she says, recalling being flown to the Bahamas to assist with a sub launch, even as she reflects on the strange and upsetting circumstances that led to her departure, including an unexpected offer to train her as a submarine pilot and make her “the face of the company.”. It is hardly surprising that someone so young would exhibit such naïveté. But it’s more difficult to defend in a seasoned reporter like David Pogue of CBS Sunday Morning, who accompanied Rush on a trip to the Titanic for a segment that, looking back, seems like a puff piece on a death trap. The Titan would implode less than seven months after the segment aired, so Pogue was unwittingly endangering his own life, but CBS assumed Rush was the real deal if he was out seeking media attention. Pogue remembers thinking, “The guy wants press.”. He won’t place a live correspondent on anything risky. “.”.
The devotion of the OceanGate staff to Stockton Rush is described as “cultlike” by a number of Titan’s subjects, and that certainly fits. However, at least in this video, he lacks the charisma that would be expected to go along with that description. Maybe this is because, even if he did lead a cult, he didn’t start it. It wasn’t Rush who came up with the notion that rich men who have a tendency to circumvent rules—among other ways, he assigned his passengers tasks to make them “mission specialists” and made sure to launch his submarines in international waters—are scofflaws and disruptors, and it wasn’t crushed along with him and four other people, including a 19-year-old man, two years ago. He is merely a minor symptom of a much more serious illness, the full extent of which Titan has only just realized. Rush never was on par with him in terms of achievement or destructive power, despite the fact that he drops “Elon’s” first name as though they were intimates. However, the OceanGate tragedy’s outline depicts the disease in miniature, resembling the virus seed from which a vaccine is developed. We still have inadequate immunity.
